Tag Archives: Food Safety

Note: This summary is from a blog post at The Snap Blog, where I will be blogging going forward.

Immediately after watching The Cove, I needed to catch my breath after the final 10 heart-pounding minutes. Neither my 10-year-old son, who had been sitting closely by my side, especially during the final scenes, or I could find words right away.

Guest Blogger: Orren Fox is 12 years old and lives in NoBo (North of Boston). He goes to school where there is a greenhouse and a bee hive! Orren has 24 chickens and four ducks (three Call Ducks and one beautiful Mandarin). He is really interested in farming and the ethical treatment of animals. Orren would love to change the way egg layers and meat birds are raised. He says he has a lot to learn. He blogs and tweets about these issues.

There are all sorts of really interesting things to learn about food, actually I imagine you might not have really THOUGHT about food. Maybe someone hasn’t taught you about food. Most kids would rather think about other stuff.

But just for a minute, right now, stop and ask yourself – What did I have for breakfast? Ok now, think – Where did all those ingredients come from? Who made that bagel? What time did they have to get up? Where did that egg come from? Where did the chicken live and how did it live? If you knew the animal was poorly treated would that make a difference? Or not? Where did the orange juice travel from? Florida? California? Have you ever traveled to those states? Is it a long way from California or Florida to your house? How much gas did it use to ship the OJ that far?

All really interesting questions I think.

1. Vegetables taste great with butter and cheese

Honestly, what doesn’t. Even asparagus, really even asparagus. I know there are some people who will say butter and cheese aren’t healthy, but hey I’m a kid and actually I think these are true foods or “real foods.” They aren’t chemically made in a laboratory. They come from recipes not chemical compounds or lab experiments. Maybe that is too harsh. But I understand eggs and cheese, I know where they come from. I don’t know what SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE is, so I Googled it (here is what Wikipedia says – Polyphosphates are moderately irritating to skin and mucous membrane because of their alkalinity). Hmm. Not really interested in eating that.

Actually most veggies that you grow yourself or that come from your neighborhood farm taste completely different than those from the buckets in the supermarket. I actually think the veggies in the supermarket don’t really taste like much. A carrot that was harvested yesterday tastes very different from one that was harvested a few weeks ago, then spent the next few days on a truck, then the next few days sitting in the supermarket. I think the flavor must just drain out of everything as time passes. Also in the supermarket there are very few types of veggies or fruits. Very rarely would you see a Green Zebra or a Brandywine, and those are just tomato variations! Each of these variations tastes completely different, we are only really offered one or two types of tomatoes at the supermarket. These two types of tomatoes are the kinds that travel well and that are easiest to ripen or harvest. I actually don’t like the kind in the supermarket, I like Brandywines. They are sweeter.

I think kids might like veggies if they could choose the varieties they like, but they can’t because the choice is so small. I wouldn’t eat tomatoes if I could only eat the kind in the supermarket.

2. Food taste better when you grow it yourself

Food tastes better because your work is in it. I am an impatient gardener, so for me the food tastes great because I have had to wait for it to go from seeds to seedlings to flowers to fruit to ripe fruit. Somehow that makes it taste like you did it. So i guess there is a little bit of pride in those vegetables.

I drowned the first tomatoes I tried to grow. I just kept watering them. They didn’t stand a chance. I just couldn’t believe that dry soil was very good for the plants, so I kept watering them. Of course they never grew. It actually made me really sad and I felt as if I would never be a farmer. I learned and the next year I didn’t drown them, I was a little more patient. Just a little, actually. I also talked to anyone who would talk to me about growing tomatoes.

I started them in little peat pots at home in a sunny window, then slowly put them outside each day to “harden them off”, at this point I almost froze the seedlings to death. I forgot to bring them in one night because I was so distracted by playing basketball, I completely forgot them. I was lucky, it didn’t get too cold that night. Once they were sturdy enough to plant into the ground I dug little nests into the ground and put them in. I practically expected to come back the next day and have ripe tomatoes. At this point the garden looked so tidy and organized. All the plants in their nests all in a row. Wow. Gradually the weeds invaded. I have to say, I like weeds. I would pull them up and give them to my hens. The hens loved them. Sometimes I would take a few of my hens into the garden with me. They were great helpers, until one day they discovered the green tomatoes. One tomato gone..after all of that work and tending! As it turned out we had a very very wet June and a tomato blight so only a few of my 8 tomato plants produced fruit. The ones that did were fantastic. I think they tasted especially good because I know how much work went into caring for them. They really did taste different!

4. Being adventurous with food is a great way to get good attention from adults.

Oddly some adults are surprised when kids eat vegetables. Eat a bowl of spinach or asparagus and see the reaction you get! Adults are stunned. I have this bad habit of grabbing a handful of spinach and jamming it into my mouth, people are astonished. Selfishly it feels good to have people pay attention to you.

5. Farmers are really inventors and are happy to tell you what they know.

I am friends with my local farmer, Matt. I went to visit him at his greenhouses. He had a problem. It cost a lot to heat the greenhouse during the winter to grow greens. So what did he do? he figured out a way to lower the ceiling so that he was only heating about 9 inches off the ground. This way he was able to keep the amount of fuel he used way way down and therefore the greens were affordable. Very inventive!

6. Keeping a compost bucket near the sink is a great way to use food you don’t eat – my hens love my leftovers.

Food is hard to grow, it seems ridiculous to throw it out. Uneaten food has so many uses. I actually feed most of it to my hens, they love it. In fact the other day I took my leftover burrito out to them and they went crazy! I am about to learn about worms and am probably going to get a worm farm so that we can take all of our newspapers and food waste and “feed” it to the worms to make delicious soil. Obviously healthy food comes from healthy soil, so I am going to employ some worms to do some work. They are going to be my farm workers. I actually think I might make a t-shirt that says “I (heart) worms”!

7. Good food comes from healthy soil, so don’t throw your trash out the window.

I am amazed when I see trash on the side of the road, or the other day someone threw their cigarette on the ground. Woah. I guess this just doesn’t make sense to me. Right now I don’t know that much about soil, it seems like there is TONS to learn. I’m going to start with my farm workers the worms and begin to learn more. What I do know is that garbage doesn’t help our soil, our earth. Basically the soil = the earth. So farmers are really the most important people when it comes to taking care of the planet. I read somewhere that someone said “Farmers are stewards of the earth”, I think that is really true.

8. Cooking is really fun. Think about it fire, knives, and lots of people telling you that your are amazing.

The thing about cooking is that most people don’t think kids can do it, because of the knives and fire. Actually we can. We know it is dangerous and that we need to be careful, but if a kid doesn’t learn how to cook how can they possibly feed themselves when they become an adult? Imagine not knowing how to cook for yourself. What would you do? You become completely dependent on someone else feeding you. I think that probably means eating fast food or food that is already prepared. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that is the most healthy food. I think the goal of that food is sit on a shelf for a long time and not go bad. Also it is amazing the kind of praise and attention you get when adults know you can cook.

9. Eating a strawberry, an apple, a pear, a peach, blueberries straight from the plant is surprisingly awesome.

Hard to believe a dusty warm strawberry tastes so great but it does. It really does taste dramatically different from the ones you buy in the store. The one in the field tastes juicy and sweet. The texture seems right for a strawberry, kind of prickly with the seeds and gentle with the fruit. A ripe strawberry sort of melts, in fact I don’t think you even need to chew. I think because it is so ripe and because you found it, is part of the reason it tastes so great. This may sound funny but picking fruit or veggies yourself is kind of like treasure hunting. It is really satisfying to find a ripe strawberry, or a homegrown green bean. It feels like finding buried treasure. Even if you are picking an entire garden of green beans it is hard work but really rewarding.

10. Food should be a school subject – Food is biology, history, art, chemistry, PE, drama, Spanish and Latin all in one.

The thing about food is it teaches a lot of different subjects all in one. Obviously it is covers material in biology – photosynthesis, species classification, ecosystems, and causality. It is also history because the place where your garden is being planted probably has a growing history and it would makes sense to understand it before jumping in. For example, what was growing here before my garden, is the soil clean as a result of what was here before me, what have other gardeners/farmers planted here before and had success with? It is definitely PE because it is so physical! Growing food also requires Latin because many of the seed names are in Latin. And I think it is art because in a lot of ways growing a garden meets the definition of art “the products of human creativity, the creation of beautiful significant things”.

Actually what is more significant than growing food? Maybe most importantly it is math. Think about it, schedules, costs of seeds, how much space is needed. It all involves math, many, many calculations. Like my farmer friend Matt realizing he could grow greens during the winter if a head of lettuce was going to cost 7$, but no one would by it. Most of that 7$ was the cost of heating the greenhouse, so he figured out how to lower the ceiling in his greenhouse and heat a very little bit of the greenhouse, making his greens affordable.

11. You can have a big impact on the environment, depending on what you choose to eat.

I have been reading a lot lately that eating meat isn’t great for the environment. Obviously people have different opinions about this, but from what I have read factory farms are not good for the environment. Also if we choose to eat more of our food from things that are raised and grown nearby, that food doesn’t have to be shipped all over the place and therefore doesn’t use up a lot of gas to move it around. Maybe we could eliminate some traffic jams by eating local. I’m not sure we can eat everything from nearby, but just making the effort to buy more of our food from local farmers we automatically reduce the amount of food that has to be trucked around. This just logically makes sense to me.

12. That chicken your eating is a really cool animal.

I am reading JSFoer’s new book Eating Animals and he talks about the time his babysitter said “You know that chicken is chicken, right?” I’m afraid most people know that but don’t really want to think about it. It is hard to imagine. Many people have never “met” a chicken before and this is what makes it possible to eat chicken. When you do meet this interesting animal, it is hard not to realize they are very much like other animals. Maybe even like animals you love. They have personalities, likes and dislikes. Do you know any other animals like that? Do any live with you? Maybe I’ve said enough. If you are going to eat chicken, I would encourage you to consider how that animals was raised and slaughtered for you to be eat. If it were tortured would you still want to eat it?

Guest Blogger: Orren Fox is 12 years old and lives in NoBo (North of Boston). He goes to school where there is a greenhouse and a bee hive! Orren has 24 chickens and four ducks (three Call Ducks and one beautiful Mandarin). He is really interested in farming and the ethical treatment of animals. Orren would love to change the way egg layers and meat birds are raised. He says he has a lot to learn. He blogs and tweets about these issues.

ProFood is two words smushed together. They were smushed together by people who were trying to get across a new idea. That idea was trying to get people to think about the food we eat in a different way. Right now there is a lot of “food” in the supermarket, but not much of it is PROfood.

So, what is ProFood?

“Pro” means you are “FOR” something. For example, I am pro ethical eating. That means I support it. I believe in raising animals in a way that is humane and respectful. I’m a humane-itarian. To be ProFood means you are FOR food. That sounds funny, but what I mean is that you think about food, you care about food and you will make an effort for good food. I am also Pro chocolate and Pro Red Sox.

Also, “Pro” means professional, to be a pro at something you are the best. I am really into Pro Sports and the people who participate at the Pro level are PROfessional. They have spent a lot of time working at their sport to the point where they are the best. I’d like to be a Pro Basketball player and play for the Celtics.

To me ProFood is both of these ideas. ProFood is the very best food and ProFood is a way of thinking and acting that is “For Food”: it supports and respects the farmer who grows it, the person who picks it, the land it is grown on, the person who cooks it and the people who eat it.

Right now it doesn’t seem as if America is very ProFood.

People don’t really think about food, we expect it to taste good, be available all the time, be convenient, be safe to eat and I guess not cost too much. People don’t value good food. It seems as if people are always trying to find the cheapest food, not the best food. I think people might care more about the quality of the gas they put into their car than they do about what ingredients they put into their body. I don’t think most people would say they are ProFood.

If America were ProFood we wouldn’t accept food with dangerous ingredients in it. Unfortunately there are chemicals in our food that aren’t good for us kids. My mom just finished a book called The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien, and she told me about the problem with artificial colors and artificial growth hormones. Think about it. We are kids and are still growing, think what happens when we drink milk or eat meat where the cow has been given artificial growth hormones. What do you think it does to kids’ bodies? I’m sure someone would tell me “Oh don’t worry about it, it won’t get into your body.” I don’t believe that. It just doesn’t make sense. If you feed it to the cow, and I drink the milk or eat the meat, you’re feeding it to me. I don’t want it. I’ll grow on my own.

Why do I think someone will tell me not to worry about it?

I think because everyone expects that the food we eat won’t be bad for them. We expect all food to be safe and maybe even good for us. Did you see the article on the front of the New York Times on October 4, 2009? Woah. A girl named Stephanie was paralyzed from eating meat that was considered safe. Why would a company make something that is so dangerous? Think about all the chemicals in some candy. It isn’t good for us. I imagine it is hard work to make everything safe all the time, but it seems as if this should be the top priority of a food producing company.

How can we make America or even just your own home or school ProFood?

Choose pesticide free, hormone free, and artificial color free foods

Drink water instead of high fructose corn syrup sweetened drinks

Eat fresh foods like an apple or sliced red pepper rather than foods that never rot.

Ask where your food comes from and how it was raised

Plant some seeds in the spring in a little pot and if you grow too much share it with a neighbor

Respect the farmer, rancher, farm workers, animals (they are farm workers too) and the planet. (Some of these ideas come from Food, Inc.)

I hope in the future we might see more small growers, farmers, bakers, cheesemakers, in our neighborhoods. Obviously not everything we eat can come from right down the street, but if there were more, we would know how the food was raised and we would be able to support our neighbors. Having little farms throughout neighborhoods would really help people be ProFood. You can even do it in cities, just look at Will Allen and Novella Carpenter ( I’m reading her book now called Farm City) This obviously won’t solve everything but it is a start. I think at some point the big companies need to think in a way that is more ProFood than promoney. I’m sure people will say I’m naive. They are right. I have a lot to learn. But, hey it’s a start.

Right now we have about five new small organic farms that have popped up in our area, so we can go by and pick up fruits and vegetables that were picked that day. These farms are also canning some of their crops so they will be available through the winter. One local farmer, Matt, showed me how he has invented a drop ceiling for his greenhouse, so when it begins to get cold he can continue to grow greens without having to heat the entire greenhouse. He is doing this so the cost of the greens are not too expensive.

I am doing what I can to help my friends to be ProFood – I am hoping to start a Farm Club at school! Right now I’m struggling a bit, trying to figure out what subjects to cover. Someone on Twitter suggested start with soil. I think that is a good idea.

The following series of blog posts provide the reader with a sense of how Pro Food emerged over the last four months, including several posts that build on the core principles put forward in Pro Food Is, the defining post of the Pro Food idea.

Why Community Supported Agriculture Isn’t Enough(March 27, 2009) – Much attention is being given to community supported agriculture (CSA) programs, but these programs are not a scalable solution in dealing with large-scale food system problems. The post provides lessons learned that can be applied to new, scalable solutions. Read more.

10 Ways to Save Real Food(April 14, 2009) – This post offered the first comprehensive list of strategies for attacking what Michael Pollan refers to as “nutritionism”, an effective approach used by food manufacturers to make highly-processed “edible foodlike substances” appear to be on par with wholesome real foods. The list touched on labeling, marketing claims, access, school food and low-income programs, among others. Read more.

Can Farmers Markets & CSA Farms Really Grow Sustainable Food?(April 30, 2009) – Direct to consumer food sales are providing numerous valuable lessons for building regionally-focused sustainable food systems. Unfortunately, as this post spells out in detail, they are up against heavily subsidized programs for growing commodity crops as ingredients in highly-processed foods, which received nearly $17 billion in 2006. Read more.

10 Reasons Why “Local” is Challenging Industrial Food(May 14, 2009) – The sustainable food debate has tended to focus on industry and advocates. This post begins moving toward the inclusive principle in Pro Food to find effective solutions to meet the needs of consumers based on where they live and what they value. It also introduces transparency and general themes on decentralized food. Read more.

Closing the Farm to Table Knowledge Gap(June 19, 2009) – One of the largest factors in allowing our food system to get to where it is today, a system too complex and concentrated for most people to understand, is the gap resulting from people trading our historic farming knowledge for cheap, convenient food. This post focuses on the impacts this is having on our health, the environment and our livelihoods. Read more.

Pro Food Is(June 30, 2009) – After six months of intensive focus on food systems and entrepreneurial approaches to helping improve markets for sustainable foods, seven core principles emerged in this landmark post. The intent of Pro Food is to drive these principles into mainstream entrepreneurship and accelerate the development of successful alternative food systems. Read more.

Building Out Pro Food (July 6, 2009) – From Zachary Cohen’s Farm-to-Table blog: With the release of Pro Food Is, Zachary Cohen spells out how we can now move beyond the traditional language of American politics, e.g., us versus them, bad versus good, etc. Next up is how to most effectively build out Pro Food from a modest statement of principles into something greater. Read more.

Why Pro Food Will Succeed (July 7, 2009) – From Zachary Cohen’s Farm-to-Table blog: Zachary explains how the sustainable food movement is at the point in its evolution where new leadership is needed to push things to the next level. It is at times like this that individuals/entrepreneurs seize the moment and use the tumult to their advantage, which is at the core of Pro Food’s mission. Read more.

The First Pro Food Product?(July 8, 2009) – From Fredo Martin’s ihatetomentionit blog: Fredo Martin asks what form Pro Food might take in his thought provoking post. At a minimum, it will be important to relate Pro Food to each stage of the food chain in order to propel alternative food systems forward. Read more.

Slow Food with Entrepreneurial Twist (July 8, 2009) – The Slow Food movement has done much to reestablish links between food and terrior (location-specific traits) around the globe. In the US, where the industrial system was already well established, the movement faced an entrenched, centralized infrastructure, unlike what is typical around the globe. Pro Food stands apart in its efforts to revitalize the entrepreneurial side of the American food system. Read more.

The Five Stones of Pro Food (July 23, 2009) – With the introduction of Pro Food and the foundation basically set, this post shifts gears by focusing on the things that make Pro Food business ventures unique in the food business landscape. Establishing such competitive advantages will be a key part of realizing the Pro Food vision. Read more.

The Pro Food Primer (August 4, 2009) – From Zachary Cohen’s Farm-to-Table blog: Zach offers up a great, more in-depth and narrative-based look at the history of Pro Food. Read more.

This posts provides a Pro Food reading list of sorts, but the idea of Pro Food is surely much greater than any one list or collection of people. Those of us working at the forefront of Pro Food look forward to many new voices joining our efforts. If you have a Pro Food blog post or article that you want us to help promote, please email me at robert.b.smart (at) gmail.com.

Every Kitchen Table and Pro Food are proud supporters of FoodRenegade’s Fight Back Fridays.

It’s no secret that I have a difficult time accepting genetically modified (GM) foods at face value. My primary concerns have to do with what we know, and, more importantly don’t know about how this “promising” technology may or may not be impacting human health and our environment.

For those who prefer to avoid serving as human lab rats, myself included, our non-GM food options, according to advocates of GM food, boil down to eating USDA Certified Organic, which do not allow any genetically modified seed or crops to be used on such labeled food products. Their idea of severely limiting consumer choice, since they are adamantly opposed to “GMO Inside” labeling, goes against their own argument of freedom to choose, which also goes against the very fabric of what makes America’s version of capitalism work so well.

I couldn’t imagine the situation getting much worse, but it just did.

The latest issue of Scientific American Magazine includes the chilling article “Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?” The magazine’s editors take readers beyond initial “government” approval of GM food, which reportedly utilized industry-sponsored research rather than independent government research, to the current state of independent research on genetically modified seeds and crops:

Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.

It would be chilling enough if any other type of company were able to prevent independent researchers from testing its wares and reporting what they find—imagine car companies trying to quash head-to-head model comparisons done by Consumer Reports, for example. But when scientists are prevented from examining the raw ingredients in our nation’s food supply or from testing the plant material that covers a large portion of the country’s agricultural land, the restrictions on free inquiry become dangerous.

It is hard to understand how a handful of companies have amassed so much control over food ingredients found in an estimated 75 percent of processed foods in America’s supermarkets. Making matters worse, and as the Scientific American editors point out, we are talking about a basic physiological need – food, which joins water, shelter and a handful of other needs defined by Abraham Maslow in his hierarchy of needs.

Without extensive independent research on GM foods on how they impact human health and the environment, the distinct possibility exists that we’re setting ourselves up for significant and potentially irreversible problems down the line.

To keep the mainstream in check, we get slick multimillion dollar advertising campaigns from company’s like Monsanto claiming they have the solution to feed the estimated 9 billion people expected on the planet in the not to distant future, among other claims. Who cares if these claims have not been independently verified. Who cares if the Union of Concerned Scientists have released a report on GM crop yields debunking industry claims of significant yield improvements.

Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields.

The ongoing debate is not about stopping public relations (PR) efforts by these companies. Companies market products and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Nor is it about whether I or anyone else thinks GM foods are good or bad. Making such claims today are mostly opinion, since independent research is not available to properly inform discussions.

The debate needs to be about how our regulatory structure has sold out to industry, which is represented by a highly concentrated, centralized power structure that controls our conventional food system. It needs to be about holding the food system and our government accountable. Most important, it needs to demand companies and the government do what is right, just and fair.

We are a long way from that, it would seem, which is why initiatives like Pro Food and Slow Money are gaining steam. These efforts actively engage everyday citizens in developing and supporting transparent sustainable food systems, building on unique competitive advantages in comparison with today’s industrial food system players.

Review Excerpt: “Like a handbook for the sustainable advocate in training, Recipe for America feels like a one-on-one session with a pro in the trenches. It gives the reader the tools they need to be up-to-date on the state of the food movement, the pending legislation and state of the political process as it pertains to food. So pick up a copy, and join the ranks. The good food movement needs YOU!”

This call to action is not about joining yet another “movement.” To me, its about understanding the importance and impact of our everyday food decisions, which Recipe for America appears to spell out in compelling terms, e.g.,:

Book Excerpt: “In the end, the numerous problems in our food system — pollution, human rights abuses, poor food safety, the breakdown of rural communities, the decline in our health — are hardly random. Instead, they stem from a common thread of industrialization, which occurred primarily over the second half of the twentieth century.”

The challenge of slowing, then reversing, industrial food’s death grip on American consumers becomes clear when you consider how American’s shifting calories to sustainable foods would impact bottom lines.

According to Paul Roberts in The End of Food, our food system was generating 4,000 calories per person in 2000 (expect it is even higher today), up from 3,100 calories in 1950, already more calories than what an average individual needs. People are consuming too much food, especially highly-processed types. On that point, Mr. Roberts cites that for every 100 calorie reduction in the American diet, industrial food companies will lose over $30 billion dollars per year. If we were to reset calories at 1950 levels, industrial food would lose over a quarter trillion dollars every year. Throw on top of that a recommend shift toward sustainable foods (i.e., not manufactured, highly processed foodlike substances), and you can see a double whammy of historic proportions forming.

Clearly, industrial food will not change on its own. It can’t afford to if it wants to survive as is. Therefore, America’s consumers need to follow Ms. Richardson’s sound advice to help force the necessary changes:

Review Excerpt: But the greatest barrier of all, she writes, may be the lack of recognition on the part of the government that sustainable agriculture practices are superior to industrial agriculture, and for that to change, we need public outcry.

Each one of us can get a great jump on doing that by reading Recipe for America, becoming informed and knowledgeable, and crying out for change!

In the meantime, do what you can to vote with your dollars.Buy sustainable. Buy organic. Buy local/regional.

What if I told you that America’s food system is broken? What would you say?

Would you defend it by pointing out the abundance of choices offered in today’s average supermarket, estimated to be over 45,000 items? Would you cite that per capita spending on food has dropped significantly over the last 50 years, freeing up incomes to improve quality of life? Would you talk about how American innovation is not only feeding our citizens, but is also feeding the world? Or would you quietly ask what a food system is?

While perhaps it’s not “broken,” America’s industrial food system, which dominates food sales, has developed side effects that are accelerating in severity, especially diet-related health (e.g., obesity, diabetes, asthma, allergies) and environmental (e.g., chemical toxins, soil degradation, carbon emissions) issues that can no longer be ignored.

The food industry’s insatiable drive toward cheaper, more convenient products has also disrupted the simple pleasures of cooking, eating and/or sharing meals with family and friends, turning food into an accessory, a lofty drop from once being an intimate part of our daily lives.

The good news is there is an increasingly vocal ground swell of advocates and experts working to reverse the downsides of industrial food, with the high-profile personalities becoming lightning rods for the powerful, entrenched corporate interests being challenged, which commonly label them as “elitist” or “anti-ag.” Such claims, both untrue and unfair, are designed to minimize any impact these knowledgeable voices have on public opinion and consumer spending. Look no further than industrial food’s aggressive reactions to the Food, Inc. documentary to see it in action.

One thing is clear, we can no longer allow industry to control the dialog, but fighting fire with fire, especially the use of fear to influence consumer behavior, doesn’t sit well, and would probably be less effective than other approaches. To that end I’ve attempted to define the concept of “Pro Food” based on a set of core principles that get at the heart of why I and others are dedicated to driving these principles into mainstream culture through communications and alternative food systems.

PRO FOOD IS…

Inclusive – Everybody is part of Pro Food, since everyone can gain from its success.

Pro Farm – Fresh, healthy, and sustainable food starts with the farmers who grow it. Without their dedication, stewardship of the land and tireless labor it is difficult to envision Pro Food getting out of the gate.

Pro Consumer – Today’s conventional food system has invested billions of dollars in constructing a food infrastructure designed to do one thing: sell as much food as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible. This strategy has been good for bottom lines, bad for waistlines and even worse for personal healthcare costs. Pro Food envisions bringing farm and plate together in innovative retail experiences that go beyond convenience to embrace flavor, taste, seasonal rhythms, community and health.

Pro Cooking – Where would we be without cooking? Unfortunately for the last few generations, cooking has been left by the wayside in exchange for cheap, convenient substitutes as people became increasingly squeezed for time and energy. In many ways, Pro Food is based in the home kitchen, the best place to ensure we eat sustainably every day.

Pro Eating – The only thing possibly more important than cooking is eating. And while Pro Food places an emphasis on awakening America’s home kitchens, it also recognizes that many institutions (schools, hospitals, corporate cafeterias) and restaurants are doing their part in bringing the same healthy, flavorful and sustainable food on to every plate they serve.

Community-Oriented – Pro Food recognizes the simple pleasure of bringing people together around food. Information is shared, bonds are strengthened and friendships are made. It also appreciates the economic benefits it can bring to regional food economies. Sustainable food can be imported (in the absence of local options), but increasing demand being met through local channels, there will be incentive for farms and processors to participate, as well as for existing providers to transition to sustainable production. Keeping money circulating longer within regional economies is key to Pro Food efforts.

Entrepreneurial – Building a meaningful Pro Food presence in a food system dominated by massive conventional players with deeply entrenched interests (and reach) will take a lot of hard work, innovation and old fashioned luck. Fortunately we can leverage America’s entrepreneurial spirit in systematically building the ever-broader foundation needed to move Pro Food forward.

What Pro Food ultimately becomes is up to those who recognize and embrace its ideal of healthy, sustainable food systems and make it their own. For it is up to all of us, from farmers to eaters, and everyone else who cares about the food they eat, to carry Pro Food forward and make its vision, its values a reality.

In some very interesting ways, Pro Food draws parallels with the early years of the Internet, when it was still isolated from the mainstream in government and university labs. People, especially entrepreneurs, were starting to eye the Internet as something that could revolutionize communications and collaboration, that could democratize things long centralized. At first, they had no idea what was going to stick, but began applying time, energy and money in search of winning formulas.

This is where I see Pro Food today, which makes it financially exciting for those with solutions to the problems we face. I look forward to joining them and others on this exciting journey.